Jack Carmody would possibly lastly have an answer to his camel drawback.
Near 800 wild camels are culled yearly on his family-run cattle station, Prenti Downs, about 1,200 kilometres north-east of Perth.
Now, due to a brand new partnership with an organization within the state’s south-west, meat from the infamous pests is being trucked to Albany and became pet meals.
“We hate to see waste,” Mr Carmody mentioned.
“It is too good of a possibility to not take, versus the standard ‘pop and decay’ technique.”
With feral camels rampant within the area, he estimates about 140 tonnes of meat might be sourced from Prenti Downs yearly, presenting a possibility for a sustainable new trade.
However it’s not with out its logistical complications.
1,500km to the processing plant
A vital a part of the method is guaranteeing the meat is frozen inside two days.
However in distant WA, that is simpler mentioned than performed.
“We’d like to have the ability to get the meat, inside 48 hours, to frozen to extend the life span of it,” Mr Carmody mentioned.
“[But] we’re speaking 1,500km from Prenti Downs to the processing plant in Albany.”
He believes authorities funding might be put in the direction of making a worthwhile and sustainable trade, whereas utilizing domestically sourced labour.
“It is a high-risk funding for a small enterprise to accumulate a blast chiller, which might obtain that heat meat to frozen inside that 48-hour interval,” Mr Carmody mentioned.
“There’s a possibility out right here to say, put in an off-grid, fully solar-powered blast chiller on-site … you’ll be capable to get meat right here right into a chiller… after which get it to the blast freezer.
“All of the whereas, you have acquired a group of people that love the land and wish to see an answer to an issue.”
Mr Carmody mentioned Prenti Downs employees had saved the federal government and taxpayer “tens of millions of {dollars}” by the sheer variety of feral pests that they had culled on the station.
“As a substitute of it being a price centre, we are able to truly flip this into one thing that is going to be worthwhile,” he mentioned.
Camel meat ‘clear and protected’
Ethan Sylvester, proprietor of Albany enterprise Paul’s Pet Meals, oversees the processing.
He mentioned camel was a “lean meat” that labored “rather well” for pet consumption.
“There isn’t any indospicine [a plant toxin] or 1080 [poison] up in that space, so the camels are clear and protected from it,” he mentioned.
“It is such a stupendous product and it holds properly.
“The lengthy aim can be to course of all of it up there and produce it again frozen, so the lifetime of the meat is even longer once more.”
Whereas a serious menace to the nation’s native natural world, some feral animals are so widespread that eradication is seen as nearly not possible.
Some consultants now see the creation of sustainable new markets as one of the best ways to handle the difficulty.
Mr Sylvester hopes to see extra camel meat processed for human consumption in coming years.
“There isn’t any cause why we won’t convey this to human consumption and begin utilizing these animals, as a substitute of culling them and leaving them like we do,” he mentioned.
“It is such a wasted useful resource.”
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